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Pedcab, interesting and good idea. I have the same problem you solved, Id bet a lot of others also do but maybe dont know it.
My about 1990 or so Honda BF8 (8 hp) has an alternator 5 amp charging system but NO regulator (I found this out when I had to fix the burned out rectifier from the previous owner). Id bet this is common in the smaller outboards with the 50-60 watt charging systems. Ive played a little with the charging system on my old Honda BF8 and it will continue to dump charge into the battery long after the battery voltage says it is "full".
There is one trip I take every year where I start the trip with fully charged batteries and end up running the outboard a lot and if I didnt know the outboard had no regulator, Id probably damage the batteries. I have flooded wet cell, Id really worry about this if I had AGM batteries.
One minor thing Id point out is that you may want to disconnect the circuit from the battery when the outboard is not in use since it would for example keep a three stage solar charge regulator from topping off the batteries as the charging voltage likely could not exceed 14 volts unless you had a big panel (the circuit shunts up to 50 watts or so to ground when 14 volts is exceeded).
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